


Time Turns On

by JonsaInTheNorth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Future Fic, Idk i'm bad at tagging, Original Characters - Freeform, Post - A Game of Thrones, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 17:53:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7902139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JonsaInTheNorth/pseuds/JonsaInTheNorth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fate was not kind to Jon Snow and Sansa Stark. But through their grandchildren, a happier song is written.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Turns On

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Damn those angsty fics, so tragic and beautiful! I can't stop crying while I read them! Now, please, I beg of you, write another with a happier end, this time, Jon and Sansa's grandchildren who looks like them and has the same names falling for each other anmd no ones there to stop their love. Pretty please. *inserts puppy eyes*

A sunlight-flecked spring morning heralds their departure, and the last time Sansa will ever see his solemn smile and soft grey eyes. She faces this separation like a proper lady, with a strong heart and tearless embrace. Jon cradles her face and presses a gentle kiss against her forehead.

Margaery Tyrell waits for him in King’s Landing, finally to become a wife and princess to someone whose claim does not seem doomed. In a fortnight, Sansa will marry Smalljon Umber’s heir and take her place as Lady of Last Hearth.

Neither of the pair wants this, Sansa least of all. She dreams of Jon and Winterfell, of children who look like her father and mother. But they are Ned Stark’s children and understand the importance of their duty to the realm. She squeezes his hand one last time and focuses on learning the curve of his jaw and the dimple by his mouth.  
“Goodbye.”

“Farewell.”

With that, he is gone.

* * *

 

She names her firstborn Robb, for the brother who died all those years ago. He has her husband’s hair and her husband’s eyes, and grows to be as large as his father’s family. He is nothing of Sansa but she loves him as fiercely as she ever loved anyone before.

The heir to the Iron Throne, Robb’s second cousin, is named for Aegon the Conquerer and expected to be the greatest king Westeros has seen in all its time. Other children follow for the both of them, Serena and Arrana and Osric for her, and his Aemon and Alerie and Daemon. 

Her tears flow freely when Osric fosters with his Southron cousins, the departure even more difficult then saying goodbye to the man she loved the most. Four years is her boy gone from her, and he comes back tall and strong and speaking of King’s Landing like the lion’s den is some utopian paradise. 

Osric brings someone else North, to seal the pact of ice and fire for another generation. Princess Alerie will marry Rickon’s heir when they both come of age, and grows among the Stark children until it is as if she born to the North. Sansa cannot bear to look at the sweet girl, who reminds her too much of all that she has lost.

* * *

 

The bastard girl looks nothing like the Umbers, and at first the denizens of Last Hearth doubt her parentage. But someone points out to Lord Robb how much his daughter resembles the Starks of old, and all the rumors are quickly buried by everyone’s excitement to finally have another child in their midst. 

Robb dotes over her to the point of excess. He grants the sweet girl everything she could want or need, including the name of his late, beloved mother. Sansa Snow’s own mother died bearing her, but she grows well and joyful in the halls of Last Hearth, laughing with the stable master’s daughter and learning under her septa with equal measure.

Shortly after her seventh nameday, Sansa’s father marries a daughter of the South. It is an affront to the new Lady of Last Hearth to have her husband’s bastard close, and so the girl is sent to foster with her distant cousins at Winterfell.  
She clings to her father as she goes, begging him not to force her out. But even the North is a hard place for bastards and finally she must face the blizzards of cold that those outside her home will direct at her all her life. Robb lifts her up and pulls her close. “I love you, my little wolf.”   
“Please, Father.” Sansa whispers, and he wipes the tears from her cheeks.

“I will visit you whenever I may.” 

“Promise?”

Robb nods, sets his daughter down, and nudges her towards the septa who will join her in Winterfell. “Be strong, sweetling, like a maiden in a song.” 

* * *

 

Jonnel Stark has the auburn hair of his father’s family, and his royal grandmother’s big brown eyes. He waits at his mother’s side to greet the new guest who will join their household. 

Her party is small as they clatter through the open gate, a handful of household knights and a woman draped in plain septa’s robes. The scared girl stands shivering in Winterfell’s courtyard after alighting from the saddle of her pony. His lady mother nudges her youngest child forward. “Introduce yourself kindly now, son.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Lady Sansa.” He realizes his mistake the moment he has made it, but she holds herself like a trueborn maiden, even as she eyes him and his family suspiciously. “I am Jonnel of House Stark, but you may call me Jon.”  
Jon takes her hand and presses a set kiss to its back. Sansa sweeps herself into a small curtsy. “Thank you, my Lord. And you must call me Sansa, for I am no Lady.” 

They take her to see his grandfather, who sits by the window of his solar. The weathered old man blinks back in surprise at her dainty curtsy and leans forward. “Come here, little one.” 

Sansa steps forward slowly. Jon presses her forward in a hope to be supportive. Lord Rickon takes her face between his two hands, and gazes at her for a long moment. “You are the spitting image of my sister, little one. I am sure she would have loved to know you.”

 _Her blush is pretty_ , Jon thinks, as she drops her gaze and looks away.  _Like two roses blooming._

* * *

 

He is taken fully with the sad little girl, volunteering to show her the grounds and take her around to the glass gardens and the godswood, the Sept their great-grandfather built for his southron wife and the crypt where all his ancestors rest for eternal time. 

They play together, between their lessons. Jon shows Sansa the way of the sword and she teaches him how to dance. She is good at hiding, but he is even better at finding her. 

It takes some time, but soon she opens up to him and only him. It is Jon she trusts with her secrets, and Jon to whom she confides her longing for home and to meet the brothers who are born that she will likely never know. His siblings are cordial but distant, taught by their mother that the taint of bastardy is a terrible thing. But Jon remembers the grandfather whose name he bears, a man who was once a king, and thinks that even bastards may do great things.

* * *

 

His legs are curled against his chest in the broken tower, and his body shakes with sobs. Sansa’s chest aches to find him here alone, when none but her have even known Jon missing in the tumult following Lord Rickon’s death. The lord was kind to her, telling her stories he recalls of his eldest sister, the grandmother she never knew, but always his voice was tinged with sadness whenever he spoke Sansa Stark’s name.

Salt streaks Jon’s face in the tracks of his tears; they are dry now but he still weeps in his heart. He loved Rickon fiercely and it is difficult to see such a brave man go. She sits besides him without saying a word, wipes his cheeks and takes his hand in hers.  
“He loved you very much.” She says, when the time has stretched on infinitely. Jon turns to face her, eyes bright and red. “More than the others, you know.”

“Thank you.” He sighs, and blinks back more tears.

Sansa smiles. “I mean it. You made him happy, always.”

His arm settles around her, heavy and strange. Jon pulls her in until there is no space between them, nothing but the heaviness of their breathing, his forehead against hers, and the ache in her belly for something  _more_.

* * *

 

“She’s a bastard, Jon.”

His mother’s voice is sharp, unyielding. She always liked Sansa, but may think his new idea is taking it to far.

“And so was the man I was named for.” He throws the words like knives he knows will hurt her, but he doesn’t care. The entire North is still suspicious of the Bastard of Last Hearth, even though Sansa is a gentle girl with a kind soul, despite the fiery spirit within her heart. “I love her, Mother, and I will marry her whether you want me to or not. The old gods need no officiator.”

Alerie sighs. “I know, Jon, but it just isn’t done.”

“Mother, I stand to inherit no lands or lordships. There are two heirs between Torrhen and myself, and all my brothers will someday have children. Give me this, I beg.” He grasps her hand and squeezes, hoping beyond everything that his need is clear.

“You have a duty to your father, to your brothers, to your family name.”

His father surprises them both when he speaks. “There was a northern love once, many years ago, separated by time and honor. My father spoke of it often, and of the pain it caused those who were forced to part for duty’s sake.”

A quiet man, the Lord of Winterfell’s words are longwinded for him. Jon’s father carries on, “This love belonged to Sansa Stark and Jon Snow. They married to secure alliances so that my father’s shaky seat remained firm and for the good of the realm, though their hearts ached for each other.”

“My father?” Alerie’s eyes are wide. “He never said…”

“It pained them all, so they said naught.” He stands and takes Jon by the shoulders. “Marry the girl. Don’t let the sins of our past cause more unhappiness.”

* * *

 

They seal themselves before the old gods, with words ancient and true. Sansa is radiant in heavy wool, and even her father comes to see the daughter who is now estranged to him.

He laughs and dances with her all night, no longer forced to seek her out from the back of the great hall. Now, he merely turns to her at the high table and offers Sansa his hand. They spin and smile, twirl and laugh. Finally, they are happy. Finally, they are one.

That night they seal themselves together between the sheets of their mutual bed. No kiss has ever been so sweet as theirs, and Jon contents himself with learning every inch of her, the way she arches beneath his touch, and tugs his hair in the throws of her eternal joy.

* * *

 

Their firstborn son comes wailing into the world on the first true day of the first winter in six decades, a snowstorm blowing harshly against the walls of the keep. Sansa clutches Eddard, named in honor of the great-grandfather who shaped their namesakes into the heroes they were, to her breast. He consumes his first meal quietly, a silent babe in a loud world.

Jon presses her sweat-wet hair back from her forehead to set a kiss upon it. This is as lovely as he’s ever seen her, with a babe at her breast and her hand in his own. He says the words that so often pass between them, at least a dozen times a day, “I love you.”

She squeezes his hand back and smiles. “As I love you, Jon.”

He sings their son the song his mother sang him, and her father sang to her. It is the song of ice and fire, a song of wars generations past and the peace that followed. And after comes a song of lost love returned to where it belongs, a heart that found a home in a long winter.

Jon kisses his wife gently and time turns on to repeat itself for the better.

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out and fangirl about Jonsa and other ASOIAF/GOT goodness with me on [tumblr](http://jonsa-in-the-north.tumblr.com).


End file.
